Planning a cross-country road trip is like planning a two-year old’s birthday party. It’s pretty much pointless. No amount of forethought and effort can stop the beautiful chaos about to begin, so you might as well embrace it.
Sure, you need to have a starting point and an ultimate destination, but everything in between? Let it happen. Don’t make fifteen different hotel reservations. Don’t map out ‘photo op’ moments. Get in your car, and just drive.
The only thing that warrants careful and precise planning is a decent Road Mix. If you don’t have good music, you’re going to go insane.
My second trek across the US of A had a snag in it even before we got in the car. Due to annoyances with the DMV, we were set back a day and a half. Gotta plan for it guys. And who was my co-pilot this time? My older brother. Well, he’s my only brother. But, if he insists on referring to me as his ‘little’ sister (even into my mid twenties?!), he’s gets to be old.
It just so happened that as I was planning to move to Florida, he was relocating to Tennessee for his job. “Tag along, partner?” I said. “Don’t mind if I do.” he said. (yes we are cowboys) –Can we take a minute to admire my Tetris-perfect packing job? My brother was allowed the big suitcase on the right, and his guitar. That’s because I’m so nice.
So we said ‘So Long’ to the parents in Oregon and drove off into the sunset. – I told you, we were behind schedule. It started out great. Windows down, blasting Ventura Highway (America) and Movin’ Out (Billy Joel) just to get the groove going. Well, guys, Oregon has badlands. That’s right. They are actually named The Badlands. And they go on forever.
The most excitement that first day was almost hitting an owl. No, let me rephrase that. The owl was flying directly at us. So he almost hit us. Jerk.
We decided to drive until we couldn’t anymore. That, my friends, is a bad idea.
(it needs to be said, that you, Idaho, were by far the most grotesquely smelling state we drove through, so thanks for that)
We dodged many a deer, goat, and cow (yes, wild cows) on the curviest, cliff roads ever. Not the best. The clouds were pretty though.
Our bodies lasted until 6am the next morning which turned out to be about thirteen hours of driving. I checked us into a skeezy hotel (I had to wake up the manager) to get a nap in. I said we’d check out in four hours, so he only charged me forty, which I thought was fair. I wanted to sleep; he could’ve said anything.
Sleeping Beauty here slept like a rock. I on the other hand slept maybe two hours. I was so nervous about completely passing out and sleeping way past our check out that I just couldn’t relax. Meanwhile, waking my brother takes nothing less than a blow horn and an apocalypse. But I settled for plugging his nose.
Day two, we were excited to see new sights, explore the great open spaces of America, starting with its charming rest stops.
I always document how I look at the beginning of a trip, because as the days go by, my ‘style’ looks more like a 90’s grunge band.
My brother has been my reluctant model for years, and my weird photo shoots were finally rubbing off on him, because this was his idea.
As we dipped into Utah for a bit and onto Montana, we played a lot of Lord of the Rings. It just fit.
It was around this time, we got on the worst road in all of the United States; I-80 East.
It is one of the most hopeless stretches I have ever had the misfortune of traveling. We were on it for eight hundred miles. Not eighty. EIGHT HUNDRED. It was horrible.
So, we made use of all the rest stops to keep Jack from turning into a dull boy.
We chose most of our stops based on what food we were craving. Little America won us over with their 99 cent ice cream cones.
And I found a friend while we were there.
We continued on through mountains…
over bridges…
Through rocky terrain that belongs in The Flintstones…
I’m telling you, it went on and on. Thank goodness for The Black Keys and Gotye.
-side note- I’ve never liked the look of these wind turbine things.They just creep me out. They look alien. I think that’s how they spy on us. yeah sure. I’ll go 75…when I’m exiting…
As the day came to a close, we were somewhere around Nebraska. As we looked for a promising exit, we saw this:
There is no way there would be a sign in Nebraska for Oregon…Hours later….We pulled into a Days Inn. First mistake.
It was 2am. Second mistake.
The check in guy was the creepier cousin of Napoleon Dynamite’s brother, Kip. And what he was doing before he came out of the back room just made it all the more disturbing. Let’s just say I made my brother go back for shampoo. After our longest day yet at 17 hours, it was time for a good 6 hour nap.
Day three, Independence Day!! If all went well, we would reach Tennessee and my brother would ‘supposedly’ leave me to drive the rest of the way alone.
All siblings have a language, or at least a verbal shorthand and ‘isms’ that only they understand. My brother and I are so hilarious together. Trust me. We almost pee ourselves doing Ace Ventura & Nicholas Cage impressions. If anyone could have seen or heard what was going on in that packed tight Honda CRV, we would’ve been committed immediately. We both oddly have an obsession with sunglasses. We had enough to each wear two different pairs a day. I have a lot because I break/lose them almost as fast as I buy them.
Letting my brother use my camera while I drive can be an interesting experiment. I wonder sometimes if he notices his own patterns.
The Beautiful Photography of ‘OLDER BROTHER‘
After another full day, we were finally getting somewhere.
I was ready for a hearty, American meal to celebrate the fourth, but my brother was too hangry to listen to any of my Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives suggestions. We didn’t even get to stop at the St. Louis Arch. What a butthead.
This was the best I could do.
We finally stopped in Kansas City, but everything was closed! Well, duh…National Holiday nonsense strikes again.
This is where we would have loved to eat, The Brick, purely for the The Oklahoma. It’s a deep-fried hot dog wrapped in bacon.
You just salivated. Gross.
We did find a cool wall though.
We stuck to munchies until we finally made it to Nashville, Tennessee, where I slept twelve straight hours without even feeling it.
Day four, because my brother is the BEST, was a short traveling day.
Yes, he gave in to my pleading and agreed to drive to Florida with me and fly back.
Gold stars, bro.
We drove four short hours to Marietta, Georgia to stay the night with our cousins, because frankly we didn’t have a 12 hour day in us.
The next day, with only six hours to go, we figured we’d seen it all when it came to strange-rest-stop-activity. But we were wrong.
Horrific murder scene? Dirty handed, clumsy bum? Trapped souls in the walls??
Oh, and there was a horrendous, monsoon of a rainstorm, which my brother braved to fill up on gas, while I took videos of him shivering and glaring at me.
Hope was in sight as we passed our final state border.
And as promised, my brother got to see the first palm tree of the trip.
Over three thousand miles, five days, too many energy drinks and 5 hour energy shots, and two days short on underwear supply (my brother freeballed it in his swim trunks; it was nasty), we finally made it to Orlando, Florida.
It was a great trip, full of laughter, farts, real talk, and wow-that-was-too-much-information.
You were an excellent driving buddy, Bro. We should do it again sometime.
(please pack extra undies)
Fighting Fernweh 